So This Is Love
by The Midnight Fox
Summary: This is a story about love and the form it takes, and about the oddest places we can find it.


Ok, I just finished watching Kingdom Hospital with my husband and this idea came into my head. Take the story however you wish and please don't load me with hate mail for taking on an odd idea. This is a story about love and the odd forms it takes, it is in no way meant to offend

OH, I own neither of these characters or kingdom Hospital so please don't sue me. I make no money from this at all.

Also, In regard to my "Last of the mohicans" Fics, an explanation is in order. They will be finished eventually but I ran into some problems when I last updated. One being I wasn't sure what to do with them and two that I ran into a few months of depression. I very much appreciate the wonderful comments and do intend to finish them-Life just got in the way for a while. anyway, read and enjoy...

**So This Is Love**

Her name was Mary, that was all he knew when he saved her from the fire. He brought her into the kingdom and for the next 135 years they were all each other had. It was strange to think about it later, that she would be unforgettable when he was as old as time itself.

She was perhaps the most important person to ever come into his world and at the same time, she was also his biggest regret.

"You used her," Mrs. Druse had accused him in those last hours before the kingdom was to fall. Mary had looked at him with confused brown eyes, but there had been no accusation there. She had always just accepted her fate and he couldn't remember a time when she had questioned his motives.

This is not to say that there weren't moments of madness, especially when Paul and the doctor got her alone for a few hours while he was busy. Spirits cannot die, this is an obvious fact, but they can diminish if their spirit is broken. It was one of Gottreich's most prized experiments, and he had a few hours to perfect it on Mary.

Anubis had saved her but it had almost been too late. He sat in an abandoned room of the old kingdom with her little body in his arms and called her back. It took time, drawing her out of that deep shell that she had retreated into, and when she opened her eyes he felt himself smiling. He realized in that moment that had she been older or he younger, they might have been in love. They were everything wrapped into one. Friend, family, they loved each other.

Mary was a child and she had the mind of a child, but who's to say a child can't be in love in her own way. It was an immature childish love but it was no less real. He, for his part, loved her back.

When Paul injured him with the pipe, Mary had cried. He saw that love in her eyes, that unspoken emotion gliding beneath the surface. They loved each other in a way that had no words and lacked proper description.

Yes, he had used her. Sally Druse was correct in her accusation. whatever his motives or intentions, he had used her. They had become two sides of the same coin, life and death. She was in this position because of him.

The fact that Peter Rickman had his accident when he did set many things in motion. It made his plans to give Mary her life back a more attainable goal. She had been with him for so many years that he did feel pain at the idea of losing her. He hadn't felt that attachment in a long time.

Hook and the others played their parts well and time changed, Mary had her life back and he was free of the hospital. He wandered, did solids for various people and got a few in return. He felt her loss deeply and when he turned he often expected to see her there smiling at him.

One day, many many years after the events of kingdom hospital, he heard a voice. It was older than what he remembered, no longer a child's voice but the nickname was unmistakable.

"Antibus,"

He turned slowly, and found an utterly familiar face though it was older and no longer that of a child. It was Mary, or rather her ghost, as she must have looked in her twenties. Spirits often return to the age when they were most happy. Mary, he assumed was no exception.

He didn't have time to respond before she was in his arms, laughing and hugging him. He was slower to respond because he was shocked to see her and wrapped his arms awkwardly around her at first. She pulled away and cupped his face between her palms, smiling so widely it made her face glow.

"I've walked the world to find you," She told him in that soft voice that was so much like what he remembered but now older and more mature.

"I never forgot you, my Antibus. You were always in my mind in some way, I never completely forgot you."

He looked into her eyes and reached out to touch one wave of dark hair, feeling that the missing piece of a puzzle had suddenly fallen into place again. She was that missing piece, she was what had been missing these past hundred or so years. It was her, it had always been her.

"Mary," he said quietly, "I-"

She didn't give him a chance to finish. Instead she pulled his face to hers and kissed him, and whatever he had been about to say was gone.

Love appears in the oddest places and takes many forms. Mary and Anubis found their forever a long time ago, but it took centuries to give it a name. They are still out their somewhere and maybe someday I will see them again. They will still be together, still be in love, and still have their forever.


End file.
